If you want to enjoy living in a place, I think it's important to find it beautiful in some way. There has to be something about the landscape or the weather or the architecture or whatever of a place that makes it nice to be in. This is, of course, all subjective.
Some people love the mountains. Others enjoy the seashore. Some love the hustle and bustle of a big city. Others need quiet and seclusion. It doesn't really matter what you like best because everybody likes something different.
But you're in for big trouble if you end up living in a place that you really don't find appealing in any way. If, for example, you have trouble dealing with large crowds and you live in a city of 10 million people, you're not going to end up being very happy if you have to leave the house — unless, of course, your house is very crowded. If you can't stand hot weather, and the place you live in is routinely in the mid to high 30s, you probably won't get out much either.
I grew up in a very small town on the Great Plains of Eastern Montana, where you can see the sky unobstructed from horizon to horizon in every direction. There's a reason that the state's nickname is Big Sky Country. Since I grew up there, I was used to the immensity of the place. But we'd sometimes have visitors from other places who would confess to me how uncomfortable the vastness of the sky made them. The felt exposed and tiny and always had a sense of foreboding.
I thought that was pretty funny. That was until I went off to university.
My alma mater was nestled in a valley deep in the Rocky Mountains of Western Montana. On all sides of the town, mountains loomed up into the sky. During the winter, the days were very short, as the sun set behind the mountains long before it would have set back home on the plains.
It took me a while to realise that the environment of that city, as beautiful as it was, was making me feel something akin to those visitors I'd known back home. Instead of the endless sky, there were the mountains, boxing me in. It felt claustrophobic. I felt boxed in and tiny and always had a sense of foreboding. I never really got over that feeling.
The best I can do now is try to find the beautiful around me as much as possible. Either that or I'll just stay home.
Sean Vale
Editor
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